The Power of Questions in Unlocking Growth

Sustainable growth begins with asking better questions. By uncovering deeper client needs and ambitions, we can create stronger, more meaningful outcomes. This session explores how more effective questioning can unlock new growth opportunities, enhancing client understanding, sharpening recommendations, and supporting stronger alignment with Consumer Duty expectations. We’ll also take part in interactive table discussions to identify key barriers to growth and explore how more insightful, growth-focused client conversations can help overcome them and drive improved outcomes. 

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Transcript

Why Questions Drive Better Advice

SPEAKER_04 0:10

Morning everyone. I'm conscious that I'm the one keeping you between this and a break and a cup of coffee. I don't know how you're doing this morning for that, but um hopefully this will be a little bit different from the sessions that you've had before, and I'm taking a bit of a different tact. Um, so we're talking about questions for growth. Um, two-part session to this. I'm gonna do a little bit of a talk, and then there's gonna be some interactivity to keep you uh interested in um in what's going on. So we've we've called this life coaches and gurus, and and that is because um we find that when we're talking, when you're talking to advisors, um you often talk about the finances, obviously, you do your fact find and so on, but you often get involved in a lot of other things. So you might be talking about divorce with your clients, you might be helping them through that, you might be talking about gifting, you might even be talking to someone who's just come because they're they're looking at retiring, uh, but they haven't really thought about what happens after that big day of retirement. What are they actually gonna go on and do? What are they gonna spend their time doing? So, in that sense, it's not just financial advice that you're giving, it could be that you're actually giving a bit of life coaching. And so, what we're gonna do here is actually lean into that and take some of the big wins, the big easy, um, the big things that you can take away uh and apply to the roles that you have. I'm not trying to turn you into life coaches, that's not a qualification that the LIBF was gonna be trying to um sell you. It is just a different way of thinking things. And so if you've ever watched a life coach on on YouTube or on a TED talk or whatever, you'll notice that they ask an awful lot of questions. And the reason for that is that asking better questions means that you get better answers. It also means that um you you'll get a deeper resonance because of the types of things that you'll be asking. So we we've heard from the the panels already about collecting information and talking about holistic financial planning and all that sort of thing. But um often advisors we're we're trained to sort of um analyse and explain and recommend. But sometimes we can be guilty of jumping to solutions um before exploring the actual motivations that sit behind what it is that that person needs. Uh, life coaches, on the other hand, don't rush to solve problems, um, they do less telling and they ask more, and they ask more whys. Um, so so that sort of sets the tone for really what we're gonna be talking about here. And

The Four Biggest Retirement Worries

SPEAKER_04 3:04

sort of moving on to that is just what what are the main concerns that right retirees are facing? What are the things that they talk about? And hopefully some of this is gonna resonate with you. So these are the um, based on research, the four top concerns for retirees, either pre or post. And the number one is running out of money, and uh you I'm sure you have this. Um I have this with my with my mum, is she's got money, but she's always fearful about running out. Can she actually spend the money that she's got? Um, or is it gonna leave her short down the line? And this links into the other three things here. So leaving a legacy. When you're talking to your clients, are they thinking about that legacy in their mind with their perception and their perspective, or have they actually had the conversation with their loved ones? Have they actually married up the two things to make sure that what they think that legacy is going to look like is actually what their children or benefactors are expecting, beneficiaries are expecting. Um, because there could be that difference between that perception and that perspective. Um that kind of links into funding care. Typically, we totally underestimate how much care is going to cost, but we also underestimate how long we're going to live and what those um later years are gonna be like. So, how do you actually um think about funding that sort of thing if you don't really, you've not really thought about what that's gonna look like? Again, have you had the conversation with uh family members, or have you encouraged your your clients to think about having the conversation with their family members about what care looks like? Often people say they don't want to be a burden, but what's that based on? Is that again perception versus perspective? And then lastly, um doing what they want to do. Retirement should be a time of um excitement. Um we we hear a lot of people skiing, not skiing and going off to the slopes, but skiing, spending the kids' inheritance. Um, and there's kind of a fear factor that goes alongside that is oh, I won't do that because I'll be spending the kids' inheritance. But are you asking the questions? Are you asking them to start thinking about and visualising what that's gonna be and whether that's gonna be okay or not? So,

Five Question-Led Coaching Principles

SPEAKER_04 5:32

what we've done to try and bring some of these life coaching sort of questions and thinking to um to life is put together five um key points. Now, on your desks, you've got these lovely folders with some toolkits, and in that is a uh a handout from us as L and G which goes through some of these things. So I'm not going to read out the slides and go through all of the questions in there, but what you'll find is a really handy takeaway which summarizes some of this thing, so that you might go away from here fired away, fired up from all the different sessions you hear, and then put it to a side because the emails start coming in and the phone calls start coming in. But you can certainly pick this thing up and really get the takeaways. So, whether you listen to me or not, there's gonna be something there that you can take away afterwards. But this first point is about leading with their vision before facts. So, of course, I'm not saying don't do the fact find, don't collect all that information because you need that for your compliance file. But what you do want to understand and really get behind is what their vision is. You're gonna need that depth before you start solutionising because you need to understand what their motivations are, and that's gonna help you build connection. The next one is around asking open questions. Now, I'm not trying to um teach you to suck eggs, this is none of this is kind of groundbreaking stuff, it's just a different way of thinking about our role as advisors. So it's looking at open exploratory questions. Um, Ryan was talking about you know going in and talking to his um uh professional connections and referral parties and having a conversation, and often that's where the best richness of data comes from is actually doing that rather than going through a um you know a questionnaire where you've got to get that data. You want that richness of conversation so that you're getting the right outcome. Um beyond goals to values. So, again, this is another life coaching sort of lesson, which is that um goals don't motivate behaviour, it's the values that motivate that. So asking the why and asking what that means to them that's going to drive commitment, and it's more likely to move people on to actually implementing what it is that advice that you're giving and that conversation. The next one's really interesting, and that's very much a sort of a behavioural science um outcome, and that is the past experiences with money are often formative in the way that we think about our relationship with money. So that there's one question there that I will pick out. It says, What did money feel like when you were growing up? Um, and for some people, money's uh always been tight, and so therefore they hold on to that and don't want to spend it. For others, there was a magical money tree, not me, but there was a magical money tree, and so spending was quite easy for them. But maybe then those taps have um turned off and they need to cut their cloth accordingly. So it's exploring those past experiences because often it's those things that will then create certain issues for them. It might be it will help you to unlock anxieties that they're not talking about, maybe they've not even realized it themselves. But by having those conversations, it might be that those things come out. Same with their risk tolerance, um, their um appetite for something is going to be different because of what makes them, what their own sort of um bias that's built into them. Um so that's that's number four. Number five is solutionising too soon. Um, if this was in a court, it's the kind of paraphrase of this is kind of leading the witness. It's thinking about um the way you're asking things and how you phrase that, is that trying to get you to an answer? Obviously, in sales, that's often what we try and do is actually try and uh preempt and lead people down a path, but that's not necessarily getting the right outcome. And kind of talk listening to what the again the panel was saying earlier about looking at that holistic advice and whether it's um a residential um traditional mortgage versus later life, is trying to fit things to what people need. So it's looking to get around from those solutions. Um, so that's a real whistle stop um summary of those five points. Like I say, in your patch, you'll have that takeaway. It's also got some techniques in there of how you can apply this. Um, it might be something that you you know could work really nicely for you. It's just another thing, another piece to add into your your kit bag of thinking about those conversations and really driving out the value in that.

Building Trust In An AI Age

SPEAKER_04 10:37

And all of this is kind of linked to the trust equation. I'm sure some of you will have heard about that. Um, it's about building um using sort of credibility, um, reliability and intimacy with less self-interest to actually generate trust. And of course, it's trust that's going to be ever more important in this world because um where we're at is people are using AI in a in a to to go off and ask people, uh ask questions about how they should be doing their finances, and that's where you guys come in differently because it's the human, it's that trust that you build through connections like this that will make the difference. Because you can go in and ask about estate planning, what should I do in this scenario, but it's not really going to drive out the answers that you can through that line of questioning. So, so that's kind of the summary there. One thing I wanted to touch on was this questions

Real Barriers To Business Growth

SPEAKER_04 11:38

for growth. So, in the lead up to this session, we sent out a poll to find out what you thought were your barriers to growth over the next 12 months. And I want to thank you for those who who participated in giving us that. And it was quite honest feedback that came across. Um, it's going to be a word cloud that comes on here and see what it is that um stands out to you when I put it on. Don't need to really talk about that, do I? Because it's all affected all of us in in lots of different ways. But um these are the barriers. And of course, this is what people in the room are saying it's uncertainty. I think the only certain thing is that we live in uncertain times. That's always been the case. There's always this fear. There's fears of delays, there's admin problems, there's um compliance issues. Um, how do I market myself? Well, you've already seen the professional connections um toolkit that's out there, that's a way of marketing yourself. Um, there's misconceptions and bias. People don't really understand uh what equity release is. In some ways, there's still this stigma around the product. Um but what we've got here in the room is an awful lot of knowledge. Each of you will be doing things in lots of different ways. Um, some will be really successful at it, specializing purely in equity release, and some of you maybe are just scratching the surface, and then others of you might not yet have taken the dip and gone in to actually move into it, and you're here to find out more. So, this next part of the session, and this is where I want you to get involved, is a bit more of an interactive piece. You're already sitting in tables. We're gonna have a few minutes, I'm gonna pose you some questions for you to discuss. We're gonna do one at a time, and what I'd like you to do is really lean into this because the idea is that you know, we've all come here to obviously get some CPD, have a nice lunch, etc. Uh, but the point is to take takeaways, the practical help to actually improve ourselves and grow our businesses, because that's what it's all about is growing our business. So I hope that these questions will help you in terms of driving some of that growth. Um, and so without further ado, the first question, what I'm going to do is set a timer and we'll have um five minutes. I'll then give you a one-minute warning saying for you to wrap up, and then if you could on your tables find somebody who'll kind of be a spokesperson if you've got something different to say, uh, and we'll feed that back for anybody else in case any of your tables don't come up with good ideas. Hopefully, there'll be something else in the room that will be. Okay, so first question. Um,

Handling Politics, Rates And Client Noise

SPEAKER_04 14:21

clients worry, advisors have views. How do you bridge that gap on topics like the economy, Trump, interest rates, myths? How do you help your clients navigate all of that? Five minutes. Is that right? Okay, everyone, can I draw your conversations to a close? Okay, um, whoever's got something that they would like to share, can you raise your hand? And then we've got the roving mics that will come around to pick you up. Anyone? Any hands, come on. Brilliant. Would you like to?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Hello, um, we discussed um sort of delivering a client, uh, clear client journey, talk about each topic, uh, offer an education, identifying their uh needs today as well as projection for the future, and sort of easy to digest case studies.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

Awesome. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Anyone else?

SPEAKER_06 15:37

Hi. Um well we discussed not a lot. Basically, that thought bubble, there's nothing you can do to influence that at all. If it isn't Trump, it's gonna be somebody else. If it isn't Keir Starmer, it'll be somebody else. You can't affect inflation rates, you can't affect interest rates. So the fact is there's nothing to worry about with all of that. What we need to do is focus on my advice, and I'll answer the questions as best I can, but we need to take action to solve whatever problem it is that they've got. Um, my mother used to say to me, Craig, worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere. So there's absolutely no point in worrying about external forces that you've got no influence over. So let's work with you, let's help you, and we'll get you where you need to be.

SPEAKER_04 16:29

Love that. Control the controllables. Um, we've got one more just over here.

SPEAKER_05 16:35

Yeah, that that was that was pretty much bang on, I think, with what we discussed, which was that you can't um influence these things. Um, economies are cyclical. Um, we talk about advantages and disadvantages rather than actual granular detail around decisions and political decisions because I think clients don't need that, they don't understand that, but they want to know what the longer term goal is, and I think that was another thing, is just like taking a longer-term picture of someone's goals and what they want as their solution. Um, the noise now was around five years ago. I'll just say there's trust, Ukraine war. I mean, you know, we can go on, can't we? Particularly in the last five years, and that's not going to change. So I think like getting clients comfortable with change and comfortable with risk as well is really important, you know, and not delaying decisions because of this stuff. That's a really important point as well. Um, not talking people into things that they shouldn't want to do, but just helping them make decisions confidently and make them long term, not short term.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

Yeah, brilliant. Thank you so much, everyone, for your participation. There'll be more time to share back any other thoughts. Um, obviously, we're going into a break after this, but what we'll do now is move on to the sec question two.

Referral Routes That Actually Convert

SPEAKER_04 17:49

So, um, Paul obviously his session was talking about referral strategies, but it would be great if you could have that conversation on your table in terms of what referral strategies have delivered you real results. And um some people have already said this to me this morning, but they kind of wait for the cases to come to them rather than going out and looking for it. So discuss. Um, is is that the right way? Is that a a factor of where you are? Um over to you to discuss. If you could halt your conversations. Anyone like to share their findings, their thoughts, their learnings? Anyone? Hand up? Hi, Steve Patterson.

SPEAKER_07 18:40

Um, yeah, we've had conversation on the table, and people have got different routes and different successes with the referrals. What we've discussed, some people have used networking such as BI, um, other local sort of business clubs where you can visit weekly. Um, me personally, I'm part of a network now, the money group, and there's a lot of referrals come within there, and you get involved with webinars with the new recruits, etc. So I'm fortunate enough now that um we I do get quite a lot of referrals within the network. But as I was saying, there's a couple of people in the same boat on the table. Looking back over the years, um, wealth managers have been a good source of referrals, especially um quality referrals that convert. They pretty much understand the products, but the majority that I've met and know they don't want to get involved with the later life market themselves, and many um they don't want to pay away either, they're not interested in that side of things. What they do want, they want to make sure that they can trust you and that the clients are looked after properly. And I think once you forge some of them relationships, they always come back to you, and it could only be maybe one or two referrals per year that you get off some of the wealth people, but they tend to be very good. Um, I think something that Jack mentioned as well is B and I's worked very well for him. Um we've even tried um lead generation and that type of thing over the years, but I've definitely found that warmer, stronger referrals for me anyway, and I think from a few people around the table come from people that you've looked after in the past and they'll always come back to you.

SPEAKER_04 20:24

Yeah, brilliant, thank you, Steve.

SPEAKER_03 20:27

Anyone else want to share anything? Um we have one in the middle there.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Hi yeah. We had a lot of discussion on our table around um how we're working with the introducers. So talking about if we just went through yellow pages, it's probably gonna kill us a little bit. We're getting 20 calls and perhaps not speaking to that many people or converting them into the introducers. But once you have that kind of social relationship and able to build them into your partnership, kind of we talked about being able to educate those people, go into team meetings, really create that strong bond, um, and also making sure that when you've got a really good introducer, you're um asking those people for other referrals as well, for other introducers, that you might be able to grow that network and work with them as a trusted partner as well.

SPEAKER_04 21:17

Awesome, thank you, Jamie. Right, let's move on to the uh third and final question.

AI Shortcuts, Compliance And Hidden Bias

SPEAKER_04 21:25

So, some of you might know that uh beginning of last year I did a little talk at one of these air events on AI. Um the markets change enormously, and again, I've already spoken with some of you about how you've been deploying it. But um it's a bit it can be a bit of a wild west out there, depending on what your experience has been. But where has AI added value for you? And has it created challenges? Not challengers. Um, has it created challenges or opened any new opportunities for you? So there we go, five more minutes. What's really interesting is just how animated this last question has got a lot of you going. Maybe that's uh a real sign of what AI is doing for you, or maybe some of the frustration that it's causing for you. So, again, um who would like to share their thoughts? Um, Rachel, Sanjay, can I pick on your table? Because there was a lot of good conversation going on there.

SPEAKER_08 22:26

Um we had quite an open discussion on who uses AI, who doesn't, and their thoughts on it. Some of us use it privately, as such, to respond to client emails, and some use it a bit more in-depth from meeting notes and trying to get different systems to link to each other. Where I personally see it's added a huge amount of value in the last year for myself is staff costs are the most expensive. Um, and we've used AI very heavily behind the scenes, purely for recording meetings, pre-populating fact finds, doing meeting summaries. Obviously, we have the ultimate responsibility of proofreading and checking up before it sends out. Um, and we've even had closed AI systems whereby we've downloaded the CMAP books or the regulating and the MCOB to ask it questions to give it a second opinion. Because we know a lot, but we can't remember everything. Um we extrapolate that even onto the CII R01 through to R06s as well. So it just gives us a different opinion, so we're just not stuck in what we're used to doing. Um and we found that very helpful and it saves a huge amount of time.

SPEAKER_04 23:32

That's brilliant. Thank you. Uh anybody else want to share their thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 23:39

Can we have one just to the front here?

unknown 23:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Thanks very much, Shabir from um First Call for Mortgages in London. Um we had not too much of a discussion, but at least a couple of my colleagues here did. And uh I'm of a certain age that I remember dot-com bubble. Uh, therefore, and I also lost a lot of money personally. Um, and the discussion was that, yes, of course, like our other colleagues said, that it does help uh because we don't have memory for a lot of data. Um, plus also each individual circumstances are so different, and AI would perhaps help in collating that information. But at the end of the day, editing has to be done by you, by the individual who is actually sending the information, whether it's a reason for uh recommendation letter or any other thing. So there's got to be a human input. Um, and I think you know, your presentation last year, since last year to now, um, and the discussion that I had with my colleague here, was that in the last 12 months, there have been a whole host of issues that have come about because of AI's own biases in the system, the information that may be embedded, which uh gives you perhaps not the answer that may be required. Therefore, there's still time that to be spent on. So I think we have perhaps uh, I'm not sounding uh trying to sound negative or in any way despairing, but I think we've uh uh caught up in the hype, as some of the AI specialists are telling the world now that in the last 12 months that the hype has been there because a shareholder value needed to increase, just like the dot-com buzzle bubble, everyone wanted to make money, and that perhaps we may have bought into it, perhaps somewhat prematurely. Uh, as I said, not downplaying the whole importance of AI and the tools that are available. But I think we have to be somewhat cautious. Uh, and as you said, in your, you know, the only thing that is constant is change. So this is part of that change, but nonetheless, I think caution should be underlined when using AI as a um, how should I say, answer for all ills or answer for all inadequacies that we may have. Um, and I think someone coined a nice phrase last year I heard that AI is neither artificial nor intelligent.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

A lovely way to finish.